Christmas and the winter holiday season are considered the most wonderful time of the year. For me, however, it can be the most hectic. The day-to-day problems like going to work, paying the bills, taking the kids to school, and everything else required still exist on top of holiday needs like purchasing gifts, wrapping presents, and decorating the house. The peppermint candy canes are just not worth the hassle, in my opinion.

However, my children absolutely adore the Christmas season. Since they could speak, I have heard repeated demands to visit the North Pole (also known as the local mall) and take a picture with Santa Claus. I am well aware that with time they will grow out of this obsession. But as people have reminded me, I should appreciate this period of simplicity and innocence in their lives. So I have responded to their demands with a full-throated endorsement of Christmas fever.

We always over-deliver on our presents, often giving the children above and beyond what they could ever ask for. They are just so dang cute, it is hard to not spoil them. One year, you could barely see the living room floor because many wrapped gifts occupied so much space around the Christmas tree!

But as you know, wrapping and distributing gifts is not enough to truly engage in the Christmas spirit. My kids always want to take pictures with Santa, sure, but they also want to watch classic Christmas movies like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or It’s a Wonderful Life. And even more importantly, they want to have the prettiest Christmas lights outside from the end of Thanksgiving to the beginning of the New Year (when we promptly take the lights down).

But as I said, the holiday season is just so jam-packed! Last year, when we were about to dedicate an afternoon (and likely, the evening as well) to putting up Christmas lights on the exterior of our house, my family soon realized that we had to attend a family Christmas party that same night. I quickly dressed the children in holiday-themed sweaters (both for the novelty and because it was cold!) and rushed out of the house. We were not able to find a single other night for the remainder of the month that we would all be free to dedicate time to put up lights.

And none of us (especially the small children) were particularly concerned with the details of the lights. It is not as if we wanted an exact aesthetic. More broadly, we just wanted lights to be up on the house. Nothing more, nothing less.

We got a recommendation from friends to use Daybreaker Landscapes to help us put up outdoor lighting. They do permanent light fixtures as well as holiday lighting. Their lighting experts can help you choose a design theme, install the lights, and even store the lights when you don’t want them up. They are not only recommended for the quality of their service but also because Daybreaker Landscapes works hard to make sure that you feel like a valued customer (they warn of common scams for light installation companies, for example). Check them out!

The aftermath of an accident can be overwhelming. First, you have the pain and the shock to deal with. You’ve got concerns about your long-term health and ability to recover. You may be worried if others were hurt in the accident as well. After your immediate concerns are taken care of, you’ll likely have a whole new set of worries. How are you going to pay for your medical bills? When can you get back to work? What if you can never get back to work? How are you going to pay your bills? Who’s going to look after your kids or your dog or your other responsibilities? Will you have to move if your mobility becomes limited and you can’t afford your current home?

These are incredibly serious questions, and finding an answer to each and every one of them will obviously take up a lot of your time. When your whole life has been uprooted by an accident, who has time to go shopping for a law firm? And yet, that’s exactly what you need to do. You’ll need a lawyer to pursue any claims against those who are at fault so that you aren’t left paying those big bills, struggling financially, losing your home, and trying to find work.

So, how do you find the right law firm when you don’t have the time, focus, or experience to identify the best lawyer possible? To simplify the whole process, just use these tips:

Let’s see how this works. Let’s take, for example, a well-recommended firm in the Houston area, Adams Law Firm. If you’re in Houston, you’ve probably heard about them, which already suggests they have a good reputation. Next, visit their site to see what you can learn. You’ll instantly see that the lawyers at Adams Law Firm have decades of experience in the law. They cover all the major areas of personal injury law (meaning that they probably have experience with a case like yours). They’ve won numerous awards. They have positive feedback from clients. Finally, they’re local to the area and part of a family law firm, which suggests they’ll care more for you and your case. So, Adams Law Firm, after five minutes on their site, show that they belong at least on your short list for law firms if your injury was in that area.

Finding a lawyer is really that simple. You could spend as little as fifteen minutes on this, and if you follow the above tips, you’re sure to get a good lawyer.

So you’re an inventor, and you think you’ve finally struck gold with your most recent invention. This one, unlike all the others before, is going to make your name and your fortune. The names of Edison and Tesla, Ford and Bell are running through your head, and you know, if you can just get this idea out there, you’re sure to be mentioned in the same breath as all of them.

But how do you do that? How do you get your idea out there?

This is a surprisingly difficult problem for inventors. Your invention, after all, isn’t just a book you can self-publish. To publish the specifics may well ruin your right to recuperate any money at all from all your work.

So, where do you go? There are a number of options, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

First, you could go to businesses that specialize in the area of your invention and see if they are interested in buying it from you. The benefit here is, if you can get a willing ear and sell them on it, you are likely to get a decent payday from it, and the problems of production and selling are taken out of your hands. The downside, of course, is that you’d probably be required to sign over the rights to your invention. This would mean that you wouldn’t see the major money if the product took off (nor would you suffer the major losses if it didn’t), and you’d most likely remain an anonymous inventor. You could, however, use the success of this first invention to build a name for yourself in the industry. You’d then find the next invention has an easier path to success.

Another option would be to show your invention at trade shows to try to garner some big money investment. Should be successful, you’d likely have the capital to push your product into the mainstream, however you may not have the knowledge of how best to use that money. You would also be suffering under the requirements placed on your by your investors, who are likely to want to see a return on their investment in a set amount of time. This extra pressure can be quite daunting for those new to the business side of the invention.

A final way and perhaps the preferred one of the 21st-century inventor is to use sites like Kickstarter to launch your invention yourself. By getting small investments, it is easier to accommodate your investors with small gifts instead of major returns on funds. You have more time to develop your product and its brand. You may also make incidental connections that might lead to larger markets.

The downside is that you are still on your own to develop the means of reaching the mainstream market. However, a Kickstarter, or similar fundraising site, does immediately raise your profile so that a transition to Amazon and other sellers might be a little easier than through a more private fundraising system.

For an example of how an invention can launch quickly and lead to a big profile and success, check out the story of the Growler Chill.

For the years 2001 and 2006, toy-related injuries were 255,100 and 220,500, respectively;

In 2005, Dell recalled 200,000 of its laptop batteries which could overheat and cause fire;

In 2003, nearly 30,000 electric blankets had to be recalled due to their tendency to overheat and catch fire when these are folded or bunched;

In 2006, Toyota recalled over 1.4 million of its cars due to defective parts; and,

Due to the use of the Ortho Evra® birth control patch, a number of young women were found to have developed blood clots, which also caused their death.

Thousands of product liability claims are filed in various U.S. courts every year, leading to settlements or court decisions in favor of consumers who have either been directly or indirectly injured by defective, harmful products.

The tasks of regulating the manufacture and sale, and of ensuring the safety of consumer products, including children’s toys and nursery items, is assigned to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a government agency that was created in 1972. Some of CPSC’s specific tasks include:

Determine the allowed size of children’s toys;

Set limits for toxicity of, and noise produced by, toys;

Make sure that toys’ batteries and magnets are inaccessible to children;

Ensure that children’s toys are not designed with sharp parts and edges which can cause wounds;

Require manufacturers to display product labels that will warn parents about a toy’s possible dangers;

Issue recalls on harmful products;

Ban products that can cause danger; and,

Formulate other product safety requirements.

About 69,000 children in the U.S. are rushed to emergency departments every year due to defective nursery and children’s products. In 2014, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission issued recalls on 17 million units of children’s products which included infant carriers, high and hook-on chairs, full-size and non-full-size cribs, portable cribs, infant bathtubs, infant slings, strollers, walkers, play yards, swings, stationary activity centers, and toddler beds, among others.

The Law Offices of Ronald J. Resmini, LTD, posted the following in its website: How often do you give a thought to the safety of one of the many products you purchase? Most of us take it for granted that the products we use every day are safe. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case. Sometimes, in the push for quick profits, businesses push items onto the market without sufficient testing to determine that they are safe. It is the responsibility of those who design, produce, and market consumer products to ensure that they do no harm. If a product does injure or kill someone, anyone along the chain from design to manufacture to distribution of the product can potentially be held liable for the damages it caused.

Construction sites are always dangerous places, even for workers, due to the many different hazardous factors present and used or operated within their vicinities. These include dangerous and flammable substances, sharp and heavy tools, heavy machinery, dangerous fumes and dust, and exposed electrical wiring; one may also include the high places where construction workers need to do their assigned work.

State and federal government entities are fully aware of the various dangers construction workers (as well as many other workers) are exposed to. Thus, due to workplace dangers, the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed into law in 1970; this Act, in turn, gave birth to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971, a federal agency tasked to enforce safety and health standard laws in all workplaces.

Since the OSHA came into existence in 1971, it has made an impact in the industrial field, reducing the number of workplace injuries by 67% and deaths by 65%. Thus, while the 1970s registered as many as 38 worker deaths per day, the strict implementation of OSHA rules, especially during the last few years, has resulted to about only 12 fatal accidents in construction sites beginning in 2012. Still a loss of many lives, but definitely so much lower compared with the past decades.

Some of the safety standards that OSHA enforces, in construction sites particularly, are proper lighting all throughout the construction area, adequate worker protection against falls and falling objects, wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE), safe and sturdy stairways and ladders, use of reliable and properly assembled scaffoldings, 2A rating fire extinguishers every 3000 square feet, body-flushing and eye-washing facilities within 25 feet of battery-changing areas, properly displayed and clearly visible accident-prevention signs, which ought to be removed when hazard no longer exists in the area, and ground fault-circuit interrupters (GFCIs).

Accidents that construction workers may sustain during the performance of their work, especially those resulting from their co-workers’, supervisor’s or employer’s direct violation of the safety and health standard laws, may be considered personal injuries, injuries that are product of someone else’s negligence or carelessness. Though injured workers (or those who develop work-related illnesses due to exposure to hazardous substances, even if the illness becomes apparent months or years after the worker has already resigned or retired from work) may apply for the Workers’ Compensation Insurance benefit, they also have the right to file a claims lawsuit against their employer. One of the conditions stipulated in the Workers’ Comp is freedom of the employer from further legal responsibility once the injured worker avails of the benefit. On this regard, it is highly advisable that a worker who gets hurt in an accident seek the help of a lawyer, who has full knowledge of, and experience in, personal injury laws and lawsuits, respectively, and who can advise him/her about the legal rights he/she has regarding lawsuits and compensation for whatever damages the injury or illness would result to.

“Hot work” is the term used to refer to people whose jobs regularly expose them to heat and danger. These individuals include those who work in construction sites, railroads, mines, chemical plants, liquefied petroleum exchange plants, restaurants, hotels, and so forth.

To these workers, especially those whose work take them to gas or propane exchange plants, the possibility of an explosion accident is one big risk that they face every day. 2010 records released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show 187 lives lost due to a fire and an explosion in a propane plant. In July of 2013, another propane explosion, which injured eight workers, wreaked great damage in a refilling plant and which required residents within a half-mile from the explosion site to evacuate, occurred somewhere in Florida.

Though a highly combustible and dangerous gas, propane, which can be made into liquefied petroleum gas, is a very common fuel used in American homes and commercial buildings. People use it to cook food, barbecue, heat their homes and fuel engines. To avoid possible occurrences of propane explosion, propane systems and propane-powered appliances should be checked by qualified service technicians regularly. Home owners and residents should also avoid using propane grills inside their homes or in small and enclosed areas; they also should never use damaged propane cylinders or tanks.

It only requires a small amount of propane for an explosion to occur. Thus, if there is any hint or suspicion of propane leak, you should never switch on or use any device or appliance which causes a spark.

Besides home use, the Milwaukee personal injury attorneys of Habush Habush & Rottier S.C. ® mention the use of this gas in a wide variety of industries, from glass companies to brick kilns to agricultural centers. In these environments, propane is often stored in larger containers, making the potential for a large explosion even greater. If a propane tank isn’t properly cared for, a leak could develop that the smallest spark could set off.

An explosion, especially if this occurs in a workplace, can result to innocent workers getting injured and being made to suffer extremely painful injuries that can alter their condition and activities for the rest of their lives. Though the results of an explosion accident may be irreversible, it will somehow be a relief for the injured worker to know that he/she will be paid the full amount of compensation that will allow him/her get the medical treatment needed and which will help see to his/her family’s daily needs.

Where there are motorized vehicles, then one thing is most likely to happen: accident.

Way back in the early 1900s, people already saw that cars were bound to crash; this is why carrying auto insurance was made a mandate. Motorcycle, car and truck accidents are not the only causes of accidents, however, ships and boats, have, for so long, even longer than any motor vehicle on land, been causes of injuries and death to so many men, even during ancient times.

Today, the U.S. Coast Guard, as one of its many functions, makes a compilation of all reported recreational boating accidents in the U.S. In 2015, for instance, it counted 4,158 accidents that resulted to 626 deaths and 2,613 injuries. This 626 deaths is much higher than the 2013 and 2014 records, which were at 560 and 610, respectively.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the top five leading contributing factors to accidents are operator inexperience, operator inattention, improper lookout, excessive speed and alcohol. Operator inexperience, specifically, has been the leading cause of boating accidents all across the U.S. for almost two decades now. Boating is a totally fun and adventure-filled activity; however,operating a boat without having proper knowledge about its safe operation and proper attitude while on water can be dangerous even to experienced operators.

Boat operators have a lot to learn, including boating laws and regulations, rules on navigation, what to do in a weather-related emergencies, and knot tying among others. The U.S. Coast Guard advises operators to take a boating education class where they will learn all the basics, and the dos and don’ts of boating. While taking this education class is not really required for operating a watercraft in some states, having the knowledge on how to have a safe and enjoyable time on the water may reduce the likelihood of getting into an accident.

The Clawson & Staubes law firm mentions and explains in its website some of the laws boat operators will need to observe while on waters. It also explains what legal action a person can pursue in the event an accident does occur due to the carelessness or negligence of someone else.

Hospice is not a situation anyone wants to find themselves in. This form of senior care is usually reserved for those with chronic illness and is intended to soothe the patient as they enter the final stages of their life. Assuring the patient is comfortable is the number one goal of hospice care.

When a patient enters hospice care, they usually only have six months to a year to live. Common chronic illnesses that place a patient in hospice care include cancer, dementia, heart disease, lung disease, and more. This a difficult time of transition the patient enters the final stages of their life. Hospice seeks to ease this stress and allows you to focus on spending time with your loved one. Allow hospice care to not only bring comfort to loved one, but you as well.

If the patient has uncontrolled and sudden symptoms, inpatient care can assure that a trained hospice staff is constantly with them. This gives you the peace of mind that if a medical emergency were to occur, your loved one would be in good hands. If your loved one prefers to stay in their home and they have symptoms controlled by medication, routine home care could prove to be a good option as it promotes the feeling of normalcy.

Hospice allows for a family to focus on creating positive final memories with their loved one instead of having to focus solely on giving them the medical attention the need in their final stage of life. This allows for easier days for the whole family. Hospice care provides an unmatched sense of peace at a time when things are usually uncertain and scary.

Between 1.5 million and 1.6 million individuals are currently receiving some form of hospice treatment, showing the importance of understanding and being aware of this form of care as an option for your loved one when everything else seems uncertain.

To protect yourself from debilitating and fatal injuries brought about by a motorcycle-related accident, always keep in mind these simple tips:

Check before you go

Just like any other vehicles, you should check the condition of your motorcycle before hitting the road. You can do a front-to-end inspection of your bike, starting from the headlight to its brake light.

Invest in good bicycle components

You may consider investing in anti-lock braking system (ABS), which works pretty much the same as that of cars. ABS prevents your wheels from locking up during a hard brake, preventing you from skidding and losing control of your bike. Good tires and quality head and tail lights are also needed for a safe ride.

Protect your head, always

Buying a good helmet is one thing; wearing it is another. You might be tempted not to wear a helmet, especially when you are just driving three to four blocks to get your groceries. However, because accidents are never expected, you should be on guard at all times.

Remember that you are a vehicle

Your motorcycle is a motorized vehicle, which means you should adapt a driver common sense and act in accordance with the traffic rules and regulations. However, you should also remember that you are more vulnerable than four-wheeled cars around you, so you have to be extra cautious and more defensive when driving.

Learn more about driving

Joining in a motorcycle club near your area can help you learn more about motorcycle safety tips. Some organizations offer free riding course, which gives you an opportunity to further hone your skills.

A car chase, car racing on busy roads or highways and driving on the opposite lane to avoid any pursuers, especially cops, are very exciting scenes in movies; these scenes, sometimes, could even make one wish that he/she were in the lead car’s driving seat instead of the actor (or the stuntman).

One has keep in mind, however, that all such scenes are coordinated and that all the actors and stuntmen involved are protected with the proper gear against any untoward incident. Do any of those scenes in real life and you can very well expect that an accident will occur; even professional car racers during tournaments are prone to the most dangerous accidents – and these are perfectly trained where driving is the concern.

It is obvious, though, that many drivers are either just too courageous or irresponsible whenever they hit the road (such courage, however, is very much out of place). Due to these unwanted road behaviors, millions of accidents happen every year, severely injuring more than a million and taking the lives of as many as 35,000 innocent victims.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and all traffic safety enforcers in all 50 states work untiringly to try to keep roads and highways free from accidents, or at least significantly reduce its number. Despite some degrees of success, authorities know that there are plenty of things that still need to be accomplished.

Some moves by the government have been to make the penalties of traffic violation harsher, put up check points where sobriety tests may be conducted, pass and enforce new laws, and so forth. There are times, however, when enforcers become overzealous in their job, making charges where one is never necessary.

The different traffic violations a driver can be charged with include, speeding, distracted driving, reckless driving and, the one which many drivers try hard to keep free from, driving under the influence or DUI.

Drinking and driving. Everyone knows that these two things will never be an acceptable pair. The only surprising thing is that even the kindest people, persons respected in their career and community, or those who are known as conscientious and responsible, have been and can be guilty of driving while under the influence – just like anybody else.

One can only be sure that these people mean no harm and are confident that, with due care, they will get home safely, without causing anyone trouble. Thus, they drive as safely as they can, sometimes, even as slowly as possible. The only big problem is, driving slow is one of the signs of drunk-driving, according to traffic enforcers.

According to the webpage for Nashville DUI lawyer Brent Horst, Attorney at Law, a DUI charge is a serious matter. To defend yourself, you will almost certainly need the help of an attorney. Not all lawyers, however, have the same depth of knowledge about their area of practice. The extent of experience can also be an advantage in such serious matters.